Baz Luhrmann and The Queen’s Women on

Romeo and Juliet is one of, if not the most famous of William Shakespeare’s tragic plays. It has been adapted into films and remade countless times over and over again. One of the most notable of these adaptations is Baz Luhrmann’s production of a modern day Romeo and Juliet. Many similarities between the film and the original text can be noted, but there are differences as well. The similarities are easily seen in the basic ideas regarding theme, but the differences can be noticed in the setting, mood, character personalities, and scene selection. Many of the exact same decisions regarding script, theme, setting, mood, character personalities, and scene selection were made in the direction of The Queen’s Women production of Romeo and Juliet.
Many of the themes such as loyalty, friendship, and violence, remain the same whether taking the film or the original text into account (no author, OPPapers.com). In both the film and the text loyalty is the first and foremost of importance to the story. Such loyalty can be seen in the loyalty of each character to their respective house as well as the loyalty that accompanies the love between Romeo and Juliet. Romeo, Benvolio, and Mercutio (although not related to the Montague family, he is closely associated with it as he is Romeo’s best friend) breath, eat, sleep, and drink with the name of the Montague family in mind. The same is true of the Capulet family, mainly when speaking of Tybalt. Each lives with the burden of defending their family name and seems to feel the need to prove the power that is within each family even though it many times resorts to violence. This need to stand for their family name and their loyalty to each other called upon by love is what ultimately leads to the death of young Romeo and Juliet. The feuding families would never approve of the friendship, love, or marriage of a Capulet to a Montague. Both Romeo and Juliet are aware of this strong disapproval which leads to the secrecy of their short lived relationship as well their covert marriage and, in due course, their deaths.
As previously mentioned, the loyalty exerted by each of the feuding family members often leads to violence in both the film adaptation and the original text. The play opens to a scuffle between the Capulet’s and the Montague’s in both sources (Luhrmann & Holland). In this opening scene, there are no fatalities, but it foreshadows the extreme violence and pure hatred that exists between the two families. Later on, during the Capulet party, subtle hatred can be noticed in the Capulet’s attitude, mainly through Tybalt, towards the Montague’s. Sadly, this resentment leads to the deaths of beloved members of both the Capulet and Montague family. Towards the end of the play, the feuding families find themselves in a brawl once again, but this time it is not broken up in time and ends with the death of both Juliet’s cousin Tybalt and Romeo’s closest friend Mercutio.
Mercutio’s death is the main representation of friendship in the text as well as the film. Mercutio was not a member of the Montague family rather he was a kinsman to the Prince and Romeo’s closest friend. He would not normally have been involved in any of the brawls between the Capulet’s and the Montague’s, as he is neither of which, but as Romeo’s close friend, he is obligated to take part in the feuds. Mercutio does not seem to feel as though he obligated to take part in any of the feuds, he actually seems to really take part in the Montague family. Defending the Montague name seems to be second nature to Mercutio (although he is not a Montague) due to the sheer strength of his friendship and loyalty to Romeo. His eventual death is symbolic of the theme that good intentions from friends do not always go according to plan and, in fact, can even end horrifically.
Differences between the film adaptation and the original text are most evident when considering the setting and mood of each. Baz Luhrmann seemed to create his own world to set the story in. The film takes place on a run down, modern day Verona beach that has been described as part decaying Miami and part Mexico City (Berardinelli). Aspects of the nineteen-forties, nineteen-seventies, and the nineteen-nineties can be noticed with flashy fast cars replacing horses and various forms of firearms replacing swords and daggers. Shakespeare set the play in the fifteen-hundreds in fair Verona using the common, every day setting of that time period. The mood set by Shakespeare in the original text was somewhat dark, sad, romantic, and dramatic while the mood set by Luhrmann in the film was much more upbeat, light hearted, and happy. The original text had few puns and seemed to really focus on the sad, depressing aspects of the story where as the film incorporated numerous puns and various forms of word play and the characters were always laughing and having fun. The overall difference is that the text centers on the gloomy, distressing aspects of the play and the film concentrates on the happier, more ecstatic points.
A difference in character personalities amongst the film and the original text can be observed as well due to the drastic differences in the mood and setting between the two sources. The characters in the text appeared to be solemn and sincere where as those in the movie had flamboyant, cheerful, bubbly, sarcastic, fun loving personalities. The epitome of this personality difference can be seen in the characters choice of costume when attending the Capulet party. In the text, Mercutio, Benvolio, and Romeo simply wear masks to the party and try to stay hidden in the crowd and remain unnoticed when in the Capulet house (Holland). The complete opposite of this is true in the film when Mercutio attends the party in drag wearing a sparkly halter with a short silver skirt and thigh-high boots and decides to sing and perform for the guests (Luhrmann).
Another difference between the film and the text is in the death scene of Romeo and Juliet. In the text, Romeo finds Juliet in a small tomb in a cemetery and Paris is present. Upon finding Juliet “dead,” Romeo kills Paris and poisons himself. Juliet then wakes up to a dead Romeo and takes her own life with Romeo’s dagger. In the film, Romeo finds Juliet in a tomb in a rather large church in the center of the town, and Paris is not present, therefore, Paris does not die in the film. Romeo then poisons himself, and before passing, Juliet wakes up and momentarily Romeo and Juliet are awake and alive together until the poison takes Romeo’s life causing Juliet to commit suicide using Romeo’s gun.
Baz Luhrmann’s rendition of Romeo and Juliet utilized modern technology and equipment to create interest in the story, but, in doing so, he may have created significant amounts of confusion that may have taken away from the romanticism of the play (Berardinelli). For example, in the beginning of the film, the camera is constantly moving and seems restless with rapid cuts and a loud, banging soundtrack which, at times, somewhat resembles a rock music video. The special effects and camera tricks along with the techno-style soundtrack and vivid colors lead to confusion and so the story seems to get lost in the style of the film. Since this all ends upon the meeting of Romeo and Juliet at the Capulet party, it may have been a conscious decision on the part of Baz Luhrmann to create such confusion in the beginning. This confusion of so much going on at once may have been added in to symbolize the life of the modern day Montague’s upbeat, crazy lifestyle with little to no direction; upon meeting Juliet, everything seems to slow down and the loud techno-type soundtrack becomes slower and more romantic through the end of the film.
Baz Luhrmann’s direction of Romeo and Juliet seemed to make the play much more accessible and appeal to a broader audience than the original text would. He transforms Shakespeare’s classical writing into a contemporary piece with modern concepts and notions. This modernization along with the vibrant colors, catchy soundtrack, and modern technological camera tricks, led to the film being more easily understood by a much larger, more modern audience because it was more relevant and applicable to their lives.
In the direction of The Queen’s Women’s production of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet many of the same directorial decisions were made. The original text, as well as the film, greatly influenced the decisions that were made regarding the script, theme, setting, mood, character personalities, and scene selection. In many aspects, the play group’s production of Romeo and Juliet was very similar to the film, but there were various alterations as well, and much was to be learned in studying the direction the Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of the play about each of these topics.
In terms of the script I chose to keep it parallel with the film and the original text. The script used in The Queen’s Women’s production was lifted from Shakespeare’s original text with the intention of keeping the play in its’ original format. Although it was more difficult for the actors to use the Shakespearean language, I felt that it was necessary in order to keep to the true tone of the play in using the same flowery, poetic language. Using modern language seemed to take away from the play and take a substantial amount of the romance out. For these reasons the script was derived, as an abridged version, from the original text.
The theme portrayed the most strongly in The Queen’s Women’s production of Romeo and Juliet was that of loyalty, similar to that of Baz Luhrmann’s film adaptation, but friendship and violence were not as strongly represented. The theme of loyalty between Romeo and Juliet was held through the play group’s production and influenced the decisions regarding the scene selection. The performance began (after the prologue) with the meeting of Romeo and Juliet at the Capulet house to show early on that I had decided to focus on the story solely through the characters of Romeo and Juliet. The script was then cut to the balcony scene, where Juliet wonders and longs to be with Romeo because it shows Juliet’s inquisition and the complications that exist with a relationship with a Montague. The next scene in our production was that of Juliet meeting with the friar (a nun in our play). This scene was chosen to show Juliet’s love, loyalty, and desperation to be with Romeo. Juliet’s death scene was the next scene performed in our play and was, once again, chosen to indicate Juliet’s undeniable love for Romeo. In the closing scene of our play, Romeo found Juliet in the tomb and upon finding her “dead” body he poisoned himself because his love for her was so strong that he could not fathom life without her. Soon after Romeo died, Juliet awakened to see his dead body next to her. As the reality of what happened rushed to Juliet, she sided with Romeo and decided that life with any other man would not be as fulfilling as death so she grabbed Romeo’s dagger and took her own life. The very last glimpse of the play before the curtain closed was of Romeo and Juliet’s dead bodies lying together in the tomb. This was done to parallel the love and loyalty that existed between Romeo and Juliet.
The themes of friendship and violence were not as strongly represented in The Queen’s Women’s production as they were in Baz Luhrmann’s film adaptation. This was not done because I felt that they were less important themes, but rather they were belittled simply due to time and character limitations. Due to the small amount of stage time, it was not practical to even attempt to keep all of the same themes and/or scenes because there was merely not enough time. For this reason, I decided to follow through with the most important/prevalent theme in the play to me which was that of loyalty. Due to the characters, or lack there of, these other themes were somewhat excluded and scenes were cut out. There were only three actresses which posed a significant problem when deciding upon which scenes to perform and which theme to follow through. Many scenes in the film required many actors to take the part of many characters, and with only three actresses, scenes had to be chosen that could effectively be portrayed using just those three characters.
Gender issues had also risen during the direction of our performance in that the three actresses we did have were just that-actresses! An all female crew was used to perform a classic love story, with a female taking on the role of Romeo. This was not a major issue for our group because we just decided to pass by the fact that females were playing male roles (Romeo, Benvolio, Friar Lawrence, and Capulet). When possible, we changed the male role into a female role, for instance, Friar Lawrence was played as a female nun instead and during the party scene at the Capulet house, Capulet was played as Lady Capulet instead to make the female-male transition a little easier. Inevitably, the gender of Romeo was somewhat unalterable, so we just looked past the point that Romeo was portrayed by a female in hopes that the audience would be familiar enough with the play to understand the story disregarding the sex of Romeo’s character.
In regards of the setting and the mood of The Queen’s Women’s production of Romeo and Juliet, directorial decisions were made in attempt to stray away from those of the film in an attempt to retain the more traditional aspects of the play. For example, we chose to leave the exact setting undisclosed so as to avoid any potential discrepancies due to the language or costumes to name a few. The mood of the play was somewhat dark and solemn focusing on Romeo and Juliet’s feelings of deep love and resentment of their incapability to be together due to their feuding families, where as the film was much more upbeat and happy.
In terms of characterization, few aspects were different between Luhrmann’s film adaptation and our play performance, but the main similarity can be found in the death scene. For example, the main differences occur when looking at the casting of characters. Many of the characters that took part in the film were left out of our play performance, such as Tybalt, Mercutio, Paris, simply due to time and casting restrictions. As stated before, we simply did not have enough people to play the different characters present in the film. Even if there were more actors/actresses, we would probably not have had the time to incorporate them into our performance anyway. The main similarity occurs in the death scene. Paris was not present in our play at all, so he was not in the tomb with Juliet when Romeo had arrived in our play, nor was Paris present in Luhrmann’s film adaptation.
In conclusion, The Queen’s Women’s play performance was a unique mixture between the original Shakespearean text and Baz Luhrmann’s film adaptation. Our performance focused on the main points of the play similar to Luhrmann’s adaptation, but it differed from the film mainly in the tone and mood represented in the play. Although many directorial decisions were made against those of Baz Luhrmann, he proposed a very interesting and daring adaptation of a “stuffy classical play,” but we, as a play group, were somewhat afraid to alter the original play to the extent that Luhrmann did. In the end, much was to be learned in observing and critiquing Baz Luhrmann’s direction of Romeo and Juliet in the process of directing the same play myself. Although many people may criticize such a modernized adaptation of such a classical play, it is definitely worth seeing and ten years from now, I am sure that people will be more likely to remember Luhrmann’s edition than the original simply due to its shocking, scandalous nature.












Works Cited
Berardinelli, James. “Romeo and Juliet (1996).” A Film Review by James Berardinelli (1996) <>

“Romeo And Juliet: compare And contrast Willliam Shakespeare’s And Baz Luhrmann” OPPapers.com. (2008)

Romeo and Juliet. Ed. Peter Holland. New York: Penguin, 2000.

William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet. Dir. Baz Luhrmann. Perf. Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. 1996. DVD. 20th Century Fox, 2002.

Where does the force of evil lie in Macbeth?

The discussion in class today seemed to lead to a split indecision of who was and who was not evil and whether or not the idea of anyone being evil was even present in Macbeth. Many were able to confidently argue that the three witches were evil because they were manipulative and caused Macbeth to kill. On the other hand, just as many people were able to argue that the three witches were not to blame for Macbeths killings, but rather that they simply released information about the future and Macbeth acted irrationally. Personally, my idea of the story would somewhere in the middle. I don't think that the witches intended for Macbeth to kill, although they were witches and could see into the future so they must have known how Macbeth would react. Those relaying messages can not be held accountable for the reactions they cause, they may be somewhat to blame, but in the end, they are not commiting murder. Macbeth holds more of the blame because of how he intrepreted the information and how he decided to react to it. There again, I would not completely blame Macbeth either, because it seemed like Lady Macbeth played a large role as well. Macbeth was undecided as to what he should do, the thought of murdering to become king had crossed his mind, but he rationalized away from that idea. Only until Lady Macbeth talked him into it. She was the manipulative character in Macbeth because she knew how to talk her husband into doing what she wanted him to do, and she knew that she had the power to do so. In my opinion, Macbeth is just a very weak and easily manipulated character. The witches are just a part of the story, but at no point in the story was the blood on their hands so they can not be to blame. Lady Macbeth was extremely manipulative and pushed Macbeth into doing what he did, and she did end up with blood on her hands, so she may be just as much to blame as Macbeth. Macbeth actually commited the murders, but would he have done so with out the encouragement of Lady Macbeth? I'm not sure if he would have or not, but I would lean towards probably not. For this reason, if there really is the element of evil in Macbeth, I would say that it lies with in the character of Lady Macbeth.

The Queen's Women Play Group (Romeo and Juliet)

I feel like we really accomplished a lot on Monday when we went to the CFA to practice with other students who are MUCH more experienced than we are. They were extremely helpful and provided many tips regarding where to stand, how angled to stand, when to speak to the other actors, when to speak to the audience, how exaggerated to perform, ect... Therefore, Monday's play day not only gave us a change to further discuss our performance, but also a chance to practice/rehearse while receiving helpful tips on how to better portray the story to the audience. Not only did we practice, we also picked out our props on Monday. They helped us decide on what and how to use props (for example during the balcony scene), so we can now begin to finalize our blocking ideas because we know exactly what props we have and their sizes. We now can visualize exactly what the stage will look like with the props in place and where the actors will enter and move around. All in all, i fell that Monday was very productive given the short amount of time we spent practicing. We are now many steps ahead in the preparation of our performance, yet there is still so far to go.

Othello vs Titus

In class the following question was proposed, "is Othello similar to Titus?" The general concensus of the class seemed to be yes, both characters were similar and alike. Personally I disagree with this statement. Although Othello did commit murder, he was extremely remorseful and emotional about it. Two huge characteristics that were missing in Titus' character; remorse and emotion. Titus killed relentlessly, even his own son, without a hint of regret or emotion. Killing seemed almost normal to Titus and he did not seem to have any emotional connection with anyone, he was an isolated man who kept to himself and did not seem to really care about anyone. Where as I believe Othello was a kind, loving man. He continuously longed for acceptance and was deeply in love with Desdemona, which shows real, human emotions (absent in Titus). Othello did commit murder in the end, but it was not something that he wanted to do, it was something that he was manipulated to do. Iago manipulated nearly every character in the play at one point or another but mostly Titus. It was this meddling and manipulating by Iago that led to Othello commiting murder, but even then, Othello did not seem to really want to do it. Othello murdered out of dispear, despression, and misery, not that this excusses murder, but he was so emotionally upset and distant that it just happened. So, basically, I would not compare Othello to Titus simply due to the human emotion aspect which was completely absent in Titus but seemed to play a large role in every one of Othello's actions.

A Meta-Analysis of My Weekly Shakespeare Blog Entries Based on the Three Stages of Reading Development Theory

The theory of the three stages of reading development attempts to classify an author based on his/her writing into one of three stages; "text-self," "text-other text," or "text-world." Those in the "text-self" stage are said to write with a self-centered view. The writing of an individual in this stage is considered to be focused on personal opinion and his/her subjective reactions to the text. The next step up from the "text-self" stage is the "text-other text" stage in which one moves away from opinion-based writing and begins to make connections between texts. The highest level of reading development is said to be "text-world" in which the individual begins to explore connections not only between the self and the text, or between two or more texts, but rather between a text and broad social discourses. While this theory does seem to make a valid attempt to categorize the reading stage of an author, I am not sure that it is a chronological movement through the stages of reading development. Otherwise stated, does each individual pass through each stage in order? Or does the stage of reading development
depend on the point the author is trying to make and the type of the text?
Before the beginning of this semester I believe I was mainly in the "text-other text" stage of reading development. Mostly because in previous English and writing composition courses the students were directed to compare one text to another or to "use" one text to read another. The assignments were strictly given, and so as a student, I wrote exactly what I was told to, which, in most cases was somehow making a connection between two texts. Until this class, I have had very little experience in the "text-self" stage of reading development because in previous courses, I was always told that personal opinion does not belong in writing. The fact that I am a science major may also play a role in this simply because in science there is little room for personal opinions. The field of science revolves around facts and theories that are attempted to be proven as facts. Therefore, my own personal views and opinions have not really been apparent in my writing until now.
Although, upon reviewing my blog entries, it appears that I am currently in the "text self" stage of reading development. The words "I," "personally," "to me," along with many other self-centered phrases can be found in nearly every blog entry that I have posted. For example, in my first blog titled The New Historicism and Shakespeare in Love my opening statement is as follows, "To me the most evident example of the New Historcism show in Shakespeare in Love was that..." Later in that same entry, my blog ended with a statement containing the phrase, "these were just a few [examples] that I noticed..." In my third blog entry titled Film Adaptations in Romeo and Juliet similar phrases can be seen. For example, my opening line once again contains a personal self pronoun, "One scene that I thought..." which is very similar to the preceding blog entry. Yet again, the first statement of my fourth blog, Shakespeare's Intentions in the Writting of Titus, falls into the category of the "text self" stage of reading. This post begins by stating, "Personally, I don't think Shakespeare..." in which a clear self-centered reading is evident denoted by the first two words "personally, I." Once more this same type of reading can be seen in my fifth post titled Parody, Pastiche, and Camp in Titus Andronicus where I began my blog by saying, "As stated in my last post, personally I would not..." which, again is a clear self-centered reading of the text.
Although it seems that I would unquestionably fall into the "text-self" stage of reading development based on my blog posts, elements of the "text-other text" can also be found in my blog entries. For example, in my third post, Film Adaptations in Romeo and Juliet, my post is centered around answering the question "How does this text relate to its film adaptation?" This entry posses far less self-centered views and many more ideals about the ties between the text and the film adaptation. In my fourth post, Shakespeare's Intentions in the Writting of Titus, the ideals expressed are not so much personal opinions but more of a general understanding of the text in relationship with those of it's own time. In this post, I seemed to be more interested in why Shakespeare may have written Titus the way he did and what external influences, such as other plays of that time period, may have influenced his decisions as to why and how to write.
Evidence of the "text-world" stage of reading development can be found in my posts as well. The best and most prevalent example of this can be seen in my most recent post, The Four Humors in Romeo and Juliet. In this blog entry I focused on how a Freudian theorist could view Romeo in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. This entry was again much less in tune with my own personal views and much more interested in how elements of Freud's psychological theories can be found in texts such as Romeo and Juliet which likely had no intentions of portraying any such theories.
Upon the examination of my past writing experiences, I would not say that I fit cut and dry into any one stage of reading development but rather that a mixture of the stages can be seen in my writing. I do not view the three stages of reading development theory to be a stepwise theory in which one must fully complete one stage before moving to the next, instead I look at it as a general outline or way of describing text. The stage of reading development evident in a piece of writing depends more on the type of text that is being analyzed. For example, when analyzing a personal text such a diary entry, a journal entry, or a blog post, the strongest stage of reading development apparent would most likely be the "text-self" stage, but that is simply because in those types of writing the author is focused on expressing his/her personal opinion. In such entries the writing is expected to be self-centered and to convey that particular authors views and ideals. Where as published texts such as analyses and comparative articles are expected to fit more in the category of the "text-other text" stage and philosophical, psychological, political, and scientific pieces are expected to fall into the "text-world" stage. Therefore, to me, it does not seem so much of a ladder that each individual has the goal of achieving the top stage, "text-world," but rather that it really depends on the type of writing.
Each and every individual has the potential to, and does, consciously or not, write in the form of all of these stages at one point or another. I can find many past essays, papers, and journal entries of my own that can be categorized in each of the stages of reading development, so again, it really seems to vary based of the type of writing as well as the topic. Every topic can be written based on the "text-self" stage, but many can also be written in the other two stages as well, "text-other text" and "text-world," so it strongly depends on what point the author is trying to make. If the author is simply writing a composition piece stating his/her own personal opinions, relating one text to another, or making a worldwide generalization, that author may be categorized as falling distinctly into one stage of reading development, but that same author may have writing samples that fall under all three stages of reading development. As seen in a few of my blogs, it is even possible that all three stages of reading development may be present in one single text. That being said, I do not believe that an author should be labeled based on a single piece of writing, instead the text alone should be categorized.

The Four Humors in Romeo and Juliet

In Shakespeare's time it was believed that people were made up of a combination of four humors (blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm), and if one of those four humors was in a higher amount than the others, that person would be considered "mad" because their actions would reflect the humor that out was out of balance. Romeo in Romeo and Juliet would be considered a textbook example of a person with "too much blood." He is extremely "warm and moist" in his characterization as being amorous, hopeful, courageous, optimistic, and loving. Each and every one of these characteristics can be seen in his interactions with Juliet, he is very loving and amorous towards her, and he is also hopeful and optimistic that their relationship/marriage will be able to overcome the feud of their families. He could easily be said to be an artisan (a key title given to those with "too much blood") because making Juliet fall in love with him is an art, maybe even a challenge and past time for Romeo. It was stated that those with too much blood respond to stress with denial, spontaneity, and become reckless when under stress which may cause one to retailate against the source of the stress. Once again, Romeo is a textbook example of one responding to stress in this fashion. He was in strong denial in the beginning when he found out that Juliet was a Capulet and that they could not be together, he was also in a short period of denial when he saw that Juliet had "killed herself" so it seems that when Romeo finds himself in a stressful situation that his first response is to fall into denial. This leads to the second step of dealing with stress for Romeo-spontaneity. When he came out of the denial about not getting his way with Rosaline, he instantly fell in love with Juliet instead which shows spontaneity. When he found out that loving Juliet was forbidden by their families, he decided they should get married, also showing spontaneity. Lastly, when Romeo passes the spontaneous state, he becomes reckless. After Romeo and Juliet were married (spontaneously) and the Monagues and Capulets were once again fighting, Romeo ended up recklessly killing Tybalt (who represents the Capulet family as a whole, which is the underlying source of all of Romeo's stress). Therfore, as shown above, to the psychologists of Shakespeare's time, Romeo's character is the epitome of a person who's bodily humors were out of balance and in this case, the blood was in excess.

Parody, Pastiche, and Camp in Titus Andronicus

As stated in my last post, personally I would not categorize Titus Andronicus to be a parody, a pastiche, or camp. Although, as others have, it is clearly obvious that it can be done, but it is really a personal opinion in any matter. One could consider Titus to be a parody due to its ridiculous content. It could be said that Shakespeare read the "popular" tragedies at that time and found them to be funny so he decided to write a play making fun of them. The scene in the beginning of the play when Titus stabbed and killed his son senslessly would be one of many acts that would support this ideal. One could also take Titus to be a pastiche, that Shakespeare did read (or more likely view) the other tragedies and he felt drawn to them so he decided to write Titus out of respect for or to celebrate the other tragedies. This can be seen throughout the play in the common themes and ideas present in Titus that circled in other tragedies of that time, family honor for example. Lastly one could just as well categorize Titus to be camp and say that Shakespeare tried and put effort into writting a serious tragedy, but that it was just taken so far over the top that it became gaudy and even funny. This point could be supported in scenes such as the one when Titus cuts his hand off and then his hand along with the heads of his two sons are returned to him. Although even I can identify numerous parts throughout the play that could be taken to be a parody, pastiche, or camp, I still do not believe that it was originally written to be any of these. Obviously it can not be proven because Shakespeare alone knows which intrepretation is true, but i believe that it is all simply a matter of personal intreptation and that nearly any statement can be made and somehow supported.